We tutor a lot of students at The NCLEX Tutor, and we’ve been noticing some mistakes they are doing when doing NCLEX Practice Questions. Here’s the top 5!
Mistake #1: Forgetting about your specific patient
When doing case study questions, students will sometimes forget that the question they are doing is actually referring to all the patient data in the question. They will sometimes base their answers off of a general patient. Don’t do this! Be sure to keep the medical problem in mind from the patient data, and use that to answer the questions.
Mistake #2: Overpicking too many answers
Students will sometimes choose too many answers based on no good reason! Sometimes they will be unsure and just go with an answer or maybe their professors told them that a SATA (select all that apply) will have at least 3 answers. This is definitely not the case! Only choose the answers you know are correct. If you aren’t sure, don’t pick it. The reason is because if you pick it and it’s NOT an answer, you will get points taken off.
Mistake #3: Not looking back at the notes
In many evaluation types of questions, you have to compare data to see if the patient got better or worse; or understood or didn’t understand the teaching. Some students won’t look back at the notes and will try to just “remember” the information. Don’t do this! Don’t be lazy, go back and look at the lab data, assessment data, vitals signs or anything else if you can’t remember. You’ll have to do this in the real world and the NCLEX world.
Mistake #4: Not knowing nursing content
If you find yourself saying, “I don’t know this disease, I don’t know this lab, I don’t know this med, I don’t know this procedure”, then you have a knowledge deficit! If you haven’t studied content enough, or if it’s been a while, get yourself a good resource to study from. There are many good resources out there, Remar Nurse, Klimek Reviews, Hurst Review. At The NCLEX Tutor, our students use the NCLEX Nursing Nugget Pages. It’s the book I wish I had when I was in nursing school!
Mistake #5: Forget to use test-taking strategies
If you don’t know the content well enough, you have to use strategies! Or sometimes you do know the content but 2 answers both sound really good. How do you decide? You have to use strategies! Some students forget to use them or don’t use them consistently. This is a big mistake! An example of a strategy is assessment vs. implementation. This is used when the question asks, “what do do first?”. You have to decide if it’s an appropriate assessment answer or if they have enough assessment data, maybe choosing the implementation answer makes more sense. If know the answer, you just pick it. But if you don’t, use the strategies!
